Scooped Aubergines IV

Scooped Aubergines IV
After some time and when the new school year started my father had to join the staff of his new primary school in the south. In addition, he had to rent a place and look after himself. I don’t know how he managed everything. My impression was that he was good at looking after himself. I don’t remember either how my mother and my brothers coped with the new situation but for me it was no problem to be without my father. I don’t know why, he never did anything I could seriously object to but I felt more comfortable with my mother alone. I think my elder brother suffered. He used to sing a song in which he repeated “my father” many times. For me it was difficult even to call him father, maybe because I seldom spoke with him. The whole thing had nothing to do with him as a father. I was simply different I never missed my father.

After three months he came back for a visit. A lot of women came to see my mother and offer their congratulations now that her husband was back for a visit. This was the custom. I remember my mother heated the bathroom everyday to wash herself because she couldn’t pray when touched by a man. One of the women who regularly came to see her once remarked: “You should not overdo it”. Then my father left again. Maybe he talked about his experience in the south with people completely different and how he had to teach in a foreign language. But as I said I never listened to him.

People thought my mother should not stay alone with her children. They said it would be better to have a lodger in our house. A young man, a dyed-in-the wool communist who was present in the meetings with my father came to live with us together with his mother and his elder brother who just got married. The communist was a blue-collar worker and he firmly believed the communist party was the worker’s party which consequently would free him from the oppression of feudal lords who manipulated them and kept them poor. The newly- wed couple had their own room and spent most of the time inside with the door closed and the curtained drawn. We were wondering what on earth they were doing inside all the time. But of course we knew marriage was their first contact and they needed to make up for the long period of abstinence. When the door opened and they came out for a change,we looked curiously at his wife to find out what changed in her after two weeks of staying the course.

The die-hard communist wanted us children to be communists too so he put my elder brother’s name and my name on his list. The picture of the three famous heads was hanging in their room too. One day my father’s mother, sorry I find it difficult to say my grandma, came running barefoot to our house with a cry of horror and spoke to our lodger’s mother in complete excitement, “Baji Fatim I saw some policemen hit your son and arrest him in the city. I saw it with my own eyes. Please, quick, do something”. The elder brother worked for the police. He was there too listening and instead of doing something to help his brother he coldly said: “He deserves it. I will go and tell the head police to imprison him until he gives up this party”. But I think he was not serious about it and his poor mother begged him not to.

The police secured whatever they found in his pockets. A week later we (my elder brother was ten and I was eight) were called to the police station because they found a list of names when they arrested the communist. My mother worried and I believe she asked all the people she knew for advice. When we got to the police station we found the communist in prison. We heard him call our names. We went his direction and he advised strongly, “if they ask any questions just say you don’t know anything. Say he wanted our names for offering congratulations”. Some people suggested we go with our toys so that they knew we were still children and let us go.

We were showed into an office. There sat a quiet middle-aged man. He asked us whether we knew why we were called and whether we were members of the party. Then he asked about our father and said: Why do you do things like that in his absence. You can go home now but promise not to do such things again. We promised. Then he said we have to send a telegram to the president of our country expressing our support. My mother paid for the telegram which he wrote. It was supposed to be read on the radio but we never listened to the radio. We went home and everybody who was in our house laughed when they heard we were taken o the police station.

To be continued

Jamshid

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 100%							Participated in the vote : 1